Go Get The Green Bin...

...were the words uttered to me on Sunday, by Grim, whilst he was up a ladder trying to get half a tonne of Virginia Creeper down from the side of the house.... personally I would have left it but then again, I am a lazy old bat and it had started to come into the house... so...   Anyways.  I am outside in my official capacity of Ladder Holderer - I will have you know this is a very important job and I take my duties very seriously (even if I had just done my nails and didn't want to actually touch anything in case I scadged them...)  So, Grim says "Can you go and get the green bin please, we needs to put this stuff in there...."   Which I dutifully did.  I fair trotted around the back to get said green bin.   And I very carefully (nails remember?) dragged said empty green bin back around to the side and wrestled it down the slope to where Grim was waiting with several tonnage of green stuff.  Of course, I didn't actually help pick up any of the green stuff as my nails were still a bit tacky (ok, they weren't but I didn't want to chance it!)  The green bin soon filled up and then Grim had to climb up the ladder again to get into the green bin to squash down the contents so we could then put an old rose bush and a mahooosive thistle and a big bundle of brambles into the bin.  Which is what Grim did (bless him!)  Once we had arrived back in the... back garden... Grim decided to make the most of the dry weather and cut the grass... and dumped the cuttings into the green bin.  Anyways.. you get the impression this green bin is full right?  Oh yesh, it was chocker!!!  And then Grim says... "Oh dear! We have used the GREEN bin...."   And I said "yes dear, we always use the green bin...."  And then the dawning and penny dropping that went on was SO loud... yes, I had inadvertantly gone and got the GREEN bin.  Not the BROWN bin that garden waste goes into..... Epic fail Sheridan!!!  And of course, because of my nails (ok, several hours had passed but I still didn't want to take any chances) poor old Grim had to take out all the stuff in the green bin and put them all into the brown bin... brambles, old roses and thistles and all..... bless him, he can't help having a stooopid wife now can he?  Anyways... I am very happy to report that my nails weren't indeedily scadged as I feared and not a scratch did I suffer!  (ahem...)

Anyways... after all the excitement of the wrong bin, yesterday we took a day out to go and visit Lyveden New Bield... which is a National Trust site.   Seriously, if you ever get a chance to go and visit this place... do it!  Not only is it wonderful to see, the clever chaps at the National Trust have put together a little recording, like a personal guided tour, and every person visiting gets one of these little devices... so you can go around the site at your own pace and it is packed full of info.  I am assuming that all NT places do this but being as I haven't been to one before, I was well impressed.  

Sir Thomas Tresham is well known in Northamptonshire for his architecture, the Triangular Lodge at Rushton is one of his other buildings which I used to see everyday as I drove my train past it!  The New Bield was designed to be a summer house in the grounds of his home Lyveden Manor which is known as the Old Bield.  Tresham had an eye for design and the New Bield is built in a shape like a Greek Cross... each wall is perfectly angled and the symmetry is rather amazing for the year that it is thought to have been built, 1604/05.

Tresham was a fanatical Roman Catholic, which landed him in prison during the unrest of Elizabethan times.  And the New Bield was never finished as Tresham died in prison and as soon as news reached the workers, they downed tools and building work halted.   His son inherited the estate but within a year he had become embroiled in the Gunpowder Plot and the result was the New Bield was never finished.  The state the building remains in today is as it was left over 400 years ago but you can really see the whole idea that Tresham had and the religeous iconography on the outer parts of the building are still perfectly preserved now.

One thing that struck me was the beauty of the stone and the symmetry of the building.  Surrounding the whole estate is a moat - again unfinished as work stopped upon news of Tresham's death - and the whole concept that he had really is rather remarkable.  The orchard, the gardens and the four "mounts" that he had built so each one can view the grounds and summer house from different aspects really was visionary.

And, I was amazed by the graffiti - well it goes to show it isn't just something people do today... these dates... wow!

It wasn't me... honest!!!

And the final vista once we had walked around the grounds and gardens... and sampled a few Morello Cherries from the orchard... sour!!!

I shall away now... enough wafflings for one day!  Thanks for looking, have a great day!

TTFN

Hels x